Are You Lost, Too?
by Celieera
Summary: Her life was a live show being written as the days went by; she was a puppet who was just told what to do and what to say, and even when she kicked away the strings pulled her back. Can one girl change all that? Two-Shot
1. Chapter 1

**One-Shot. This is basically all Santana's perspective, and is a bit emotional. If you're looking for fluff I wouldn't bother reading it, but if this gets enough support I might write a sequel one shot that will explore what happens after the ending. I hope you enjoy and I recommend listening to some music while you read **

Her eyes hurt and images of limbs and dance floors and music notes wrapped themselves around her, carried by the bitter taste of alcohol in her throat. She felt gruff hands tangle in her hair and push her into their sides, taking her out of her control and spinning her around and around and _around_. Screams and chants echoed in and out of her ears, coming from whatever and which direction. She blinked and saw the exit, glaring at her and daring her to come closer, but she couldn't. Not with the fog in her eyes and the calling of the bar and the martinis.

Ohh- she needed another martini.

Her legs pricked in forgotten anxiety and cold breeze as she shuffled around in her short black skirt and red curled top. Her eyes sparkled but behind the moments excitement there was nothing but a dull loneliness. Even with so many eyes on her she couldn't help feeling so, _so_ alone. She blinked again, but her vision was having none of it. Before she could stop herself she was drowning another martini down her burning throat and her mind buzzed with regret that was nowhere to be found. In the back of her head she heard the screams of her parents and their meaningless fights and bets and gambles. Yelling at Santana to do this, to do that; yelling at her sometimes for just existing at all.

She wasn't always a bad kid.

"Hey, lady, you gotta get outta' here. The bar closed an hour ago," a boring voice drawled. Santana groaned and blinked the sleep out of her eyes, feeling aches from head to toe but deciding not to care. She stood up abruptly with drunken expertise, wobbling around until she found her posture. She winked at the dusty janitor and he shrugged, pushing her out the doors and into the morning rain.

She chanced a gaze at her watch, expecting the worst as she gazed into the rising sun. The wind patted her back and the rain fell down her exposed legs but she chose to remain still, pushing the cold to the back of her mind along with the aching and the everlasting regrets. She shivered unconsciously and groaned into the air, wishing for some wandering stranger to take her in their arms and drive her off to a better place, but she knew that kind of stuff only happened in books, and yet even then, there always was a catch.

She trotted down the street, waving down a taxi and pulling out a soaked wallet from her skirt pocket.

Twenty dollars and a few smooth words later and she was back to the horror shack.

She limped up the stairs and shuffled through the door, leaning into the walls and up the staircase. A dim light reflecting from the office that screamed "_He's waiting for you". _Santana collapsed into the light and heard herself fumble to the wooden floor. She raised her eyes to the door, waiting, waiting. As expected, the door shot open and her father, a tall grim figure dressed in a worn frown and a pristine suit for only the best of gentlemen. His eyes blazed in a fury Santana knew was only aging with every mistake she made; she was much too tired to call them mistakes by now, though. It was her presence he was done with, mostly. Eighteen year old reject, most commonly referred to as much less than her name, and so much more, but none of it was anything she was proud of.

"Santana," he gritted his teeth and clenched his fist, inching closer with a building rage. Still Santana could barely feel sorry for herself, and much less himself. She only gazed at his shoes; her body plastered to floor with her mind in so many other places, "I know you won't listen, so I'm not going to bother trying to make this long. We've discussed your, _situation_, and your mother and I have agreed that the only way to recovery is that you are put under supervision by a teacher at school, and you won't be allowed after 4. Simple rules and you won't be kicked out."

He gulped down his anger. Santana was surprised he was so blunt.

"You've tried that before," Santana grunted, her depressed eyes weighing down on the ache in her bones, "and where did that get me? I moved from an A to a C-. Do you know why? It's because of you two. Barely here to say hello and then out the door and gone without a sense of sorrow. I'm only here to be your puppet." She held back none of her words, but all of her feelings. No tears pricked in her eyes. They had vanished long ago along with her cares for the world and her connection to other people. She had decided a long time ago that the only person she needed was herself, and it was going to stay that way.

"You have _one_ more chance, Santana," he snapped, "You break that and you're out. You're out of this house and out of our lives. We've dealt with you for eighteen years and that will be the last eighteen years if you do not pick up this problem and throw it out the window, do you hear me?"

Santana nodded with slight wonder. He couldn't be serious; they'd never kick her out.

"Goodnight, Santana."

_"Goodnight, Santana."_

_ Twelve year old Santana shivered at the cold in the words, hiding them under her bed covers and pushing them into the night. She whispered words of loneliness into the air and hugged to her cat plush tightly, closing her eyes and imagining warm eyes tangled around her sides, whispering words of love and care. She knew they weren't really there, but she liked to pretend, and especially on nights like this._

_ Santana's parents really did fight a lot. Usually over Santana, though. She often wondered if she had not come into this world, if they would fight at all. Sometimes it was Santana's grades, or maybe what she wore to school that day. Sometimes it was even what she was packed for lunch and how many calories she really can afford to eat to stay the perfect little girl. Santana always told them she wasn't that little girl anymore, but they never believed her. Some daughters liked being daddy's little girl, she guessed, but she don't think anyone likes being daddy's little puppet girl. A living breathing being with strings tied to her arms reenacting the same play every day._

_ Get up, go to school, have the right friends, eat the right food, stay thin and exercise, come home and do your homework and go to bed, but never think. Never think for yourself or you might start to do something wrong, and everyone knows what happens to little girls who do things wrong; they become big, bad girls. They grow out of their petite size dresses and into new bigger bones with responsibilities on their shoulders. Bad girls don't have caring parents who take care of everything for them. Bad girls don't get the best health plans or get the taxes paid for them; bad girls have nothing._

_ She remembered the talk her Momma gave her that other night, the one about how someday Santana wouldn't be that little girl they would always refer to her as. She'd be bigger, not stronger, but she wouldn't always have eyes watching her. Well, she'd have eyes, alright, but not the ones who wanted to keep her safe. That was the way her mom put it, anyway. _

_ "Santana, stop making such a fuss. Someday you'll meet that special boy and he'll get down on one knee and all you'll have to say is yes. Then he'll whisk you away back into the simple life of cute dresses and no taxes or worries. Then you'll get a few kids, perhaps, and you'll be a mother just like me." Her mom tried her kindest tone, but Santana saw right through it. This wasn't to help Santana ,it was to inform Santana. It was to inform her of what she will have to do in order to be daddy's little girl forever. It was the game plan made centuries ago for all the little girls. Santana didn't like the whole thing, though._

_ She didn't like it one little bit._

Six years later and no matter how much may change Santana knew the game plan was the same. It'd be always be the same as long as she was chained to this little bed in this little house with the strings on her arms and legs leading her through her mistakes and her achievements. No matter the wrongs she did, she'd never be free from their grasp. She always wondered who the true puppeteer was; her parents? A higher power? No one at all?

She tried to imagine an invisible puppeteer, pulling at invisible strings, but the whole thing seemed a bit farfetched, but then again, so did the idea of her ever being free of their binds.

She led her limp body into the old unwashed covers, falling into her bruised body and letting the pain eat away at her nerves. For the first time she opened her eyes and called out in her mind, to whom she didn't know. She just screamed and screamed inside and felt her heart pounding in and out of her chest, wondering if the whole house may be shaking as much as she was. She called and called for the show to the finally be over, for the puppeteer to give up his reign and let her get lost somewhere else. Get lost in her own thoughts instead of the ones he whispered in her ears.

School was school. Dreary and bland and judgmental. She felt the eyes like she always did, the wrong eyes. The eyes her parents always talked about. The eyes she was supposed to dream about holding. There were a lot of boys, boys with knees, but yet always a pair. Never the one her mother would tell her to find. Sometimes Santana wondered if it was that one knee that made it all the more special; that made that person different from everyone else. She couldn't help but notice all the girls had two knees, too. Everyone had knees, so why then were only the boys the ones who could kneel down to her and take her hand in theirs and make her say yes?

She wondered if the day were to come, if she would even say yes to the boy with one kneeling knee anyway.

She contemplated giving in today. She thought about going home like a good kid, doing her homework, eating the right foods and going to bed. She wondered, she did, but of course it was only a thought. Her feet were moving again in their familiar puppeted motion. Wandering towards the old club on 46th street with the dancing lights and the disgusting counters and equally repulsive bartenders. It did fit her, though, somewhere as disgusting as that. It was somewhere meant for people who weren't meant to be there, just like Santana.

She danced and got lost in the music, lost, lost, lost.

She wondered if she'd ever find herself.

Probably not.

The same guy with the same slightly concerned eyebrows holding the broom and the sponge woke her from her dreams and pushed her out the door; back into the bleak daylight. She thought about how she had fell out of one dumb metaphorical cycle into one just the same, but even more out of her control. She didn't bother going home that day; she knew her fate. She was gone; destined to live on the streets with the hopeful stars and the wandering strangers that were never there for the right person.

She followed her footsteps and somehow she found herself right where she hadn't wanted to be, though.

"Your bags, Santana," called her mother with a tone lacking emotion on every level Santana hadn't known possible. On the porch next to the decaying flowers and potted ivy was a large suitcase packed with nothing but the most dreadful clothing. Next to it a small trash bag with a few pillows and the raggedy outline of a plush cat.

She shrugged and left. Not a bag over her shoulder. They would be there forever, she decided, if she ever did want to retrieve them. She may want to get that cat back, anyway.

Not a block away she was when her eyes raised halfway in to sky, noticing another pair of knees opposite of her. They were home to a tall blonde, rather mystifying girl. An unfamiliar knack of wonder came over Santana in that minute; unlike her usual dreadful thoughts. It was a moment of perfect emotion, not bad or good; just, _nonexistent._

"Are you lost, too?" she asks.

"Yeah."


	2. Chapter 2

Five years it had been since she met the girl with blonde hair and two knees. Five years of kissing away scars and brushing fears off dry skin and soaking in the absolute bliss only skinny love can give. Santana wondered every day after their meeting if this girl might be the one. Not the one from the storybooks, not the princess, no. She wondered if this girl was that picket-fence-daddy's-girl life she had been told to look for; that person who would kneel down on one knee and join their hands and their existence for ever and ever and ever.

Her parents weren't here to tell her otherwise, anyway.

But that's a different story.

_5 Years Earlier_

"I'm not going back there," Santana decided, shaking her head. It was night time – midnight even. She and the girl with the blonde hair looked into the distance, hand in hand, wearing the clothes of homeless men and woman but the smiles of billionaires. It's like they said, love is priceless.

Brittany turned, letting go of Santana's delicate fingers. She raised her hand to Santana's face and moved a stray hair out of her eye, rubbing her cheek gently. The anger in her words seemed to fly away with the ease of the moment. Santana shook, uncertain. Brittany's hands felt like the ones that used to embrace her in the comfort of her bed at night; they were soft like her dolls and teddy bears and yet unbelievably lustful. She couldn't even move.

"Have you ever kissed a girl before?" Brittany whispered, her lips moments from Santana's face. It had been five minutes, maybe ten, maybe a day since they'd met on the sidewalk, but their hearts sang as one as they fell into a trance in each other's eyes. Santana's head was unresponsive. She tried desperately to shake it _no_; she'd never break that rule. She'd never destroy the gameplan, it was all she had left. The only rule left in her torn and broken rulebook that her parents had sown into her heart along with lies and tragedies and misinterpreted love.

"I haven't," Brittany smiled before leaning into Santana and pressing her lips against Santana's. A shock wave ran between them like a rollercoaster with no breaks. It looped between them again and again and again and nobody let it stop. Santana's hands explored Brittany's face, clutching, grasping, and loving. Brittany was right; she was more than right actually.

Santana had never kissed.

Well, sober.

It wasn't until a simple mosquito ruined it all, falling to Santana's face and making her body lurch away. Brittany's eyes darted, scared. Had she done something wrong? Did Santana not like it? Did not Santana not like her? Did she even ask Santana what her name was? Questions, questions, questions. She did what most do with too many questions, they forget them and run. She ran away with her memories and her future and all the happiness they could have had.

"Wait," Santana called, desperate. It was enough, of course, to stop the fleeting pair of knees. It always was. A broken girl only has a few tricks, you know, and she knows them better than any whole person, and Santana was just that, a broken girl who was calling out to the biggest, nicest, sweetest, cutest bandage she'd ever seen. The tall blonde cute bandage that walked up to her in the middle of the night with all of her sadness and hugged her and all of her feelings away.

"Don't leave me," Santana called again, even more broken than she had remembered, if that was possible.

"I won't. I never will."

It was that day two broken things found their bandage.

Who would have thought that bandage also had a knee.

One knee.

"I do."


End file.
